Best IOT Workshops for Engineering Students

One of my ex-colleague who worked as an engineer in Skyfi Labs got a great offer in IOT in the Middle East. He joined us as a fresher from a college in Tamil Nadu with no prior experience in IOT but he managed to get an opportunity of a lifetime. He was really interested in IOT and his experience of building lots of projects in Skyfi Labs helped him get this opportunity. We are all happy about his career move although we felt sad that he was leaving us. It was fascinating to see someone who came from a regular college (and not IIT/ NIT) to get such a great opportunity through hard work. I started to think how it all happened. And that was when I first felt the impact of IOT.

Until then I only read about IOT and its impact in news but now I am seeing a guy sitting right next to me got a great opportunity in this emerging field. And this changed his life and if utilized well, this can change the lives of many common people.

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While industry is growing rapidly, unfortunately on the other end, I see that colleges are very slow in adapting this. The students and colleges who take the right steps now will have a great future. Students will always remember the faculty who give them the right tips at the right time. So faculty - this is what you need to tell your students and get their love forever!

Ok. Now let’s get to how this opportunity can actually be utilized in the right way. How can our faculty and students work together and make the right moves to make the best of it. To answer this, I am putting down a list of workshops on Internet of Things (IoT) that can greatly impact a student’s career.

This is a great way to being IOT by using the very popular Arduino board. By doing this IoT workshop students will learn to develop an electronic device that can sense the temperature/ humidity changes and send updates to the cloud for storage and analysis. The user can access the data and analyse it from a remote location. It can be programmed in such a way that the user will get an email and sms update based on a threshold value that they set. As IoT is not included in the engineering curriculum, students doing their 2nd and 3rd year can undergo this workshop to understand the IoT technology from basics and apply them to build working projects.

During the workshop students will get hands-on experience on the following components,

DHT Sensor – It will detect the temperature/ humidity changes in the environment

Arduino Uno - It will act as the brain of the system and processes the data from the sensor

WiFi Module - This will be used to integrate the system onto cloud and send updates to user

By doing this IoT workshop students will learn to design a device that can monitor the moisture content of the soil and turn on the water pump automatically whenever the moisture drops below a threshold value. The data about this usage of pump will be sent to the cloud for storage and analysis. This device can also be programmed to send the user an update via email regard to the moisture level changes from a remote location. This IoT workshop will be ideal for engineering students pursuing their 3rd year as they learn about micro-processor in their curriculum and will be able to relate the concepts.

Students will get hands-on experience on the following components,

Soil Moisture Sensor - This will be used to sense the moisture changes in the soil

Arduino Uno - It will act as the brain of the system and sends voltage to the water pump

WiFi Module -This will be integrated to the system, so that the user can get updates remotely

Water Pump -It receives the voltage from Arduino and turn ON/ OFF the water flow

Raspberry Pi is a miniature size standalone computer that can work independently and control a system. During this IoT workshop students will work with a Raspberry Pi computer and a DHT sensor and build an electronic device that can stream temperature and humidity data over the internet. The data will be sent to the cloud for storage and analysis purposes. Then, the students can program the system in such a way that say whenever the temperature exceeds a certain limit, the device will automatically send an email notification. As it involves Python Programming, students pursuing their 4th year can undergo this training so that they can get skilled in this programming language.

During the workshop students will get to work with the following components,

DHT Sensor - It will detect the temperature/ humidity changes in the environment and sends the data to Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi - It will act as the brain of the system and processes the data from the sensor & facilitates the remote user update

By attending this IoT workshop students will learn to build an IoT device that can initiate the watering of the plant system automatically whenever the moisture content in the pot drops below a threshold value. This type of system can be implemented on projects like green building concepts, roof farming, etc. The device will also be connected to the internet so that the data about the system will be sent to the cloud for storage and analysis and the user can also get the updates about the change in moisture level as an update. This course shows the students how IOT can be used to improve efficiency and save energy in massive areas like irrigation.

This course will be ideal for 3rd & 4th year students as they will be looking for innovative concepts for their engineering projects, with this they can learn a new technology and explore it further by developing more projects on them.

Students will get hands-on experience on the following components,

Soil Moisture Sensor - This will be used to sense the moisture changes in the soil

Arduino Uno - It will act as the brain of the system and sends voltage to the water pump

WiFi Module - This will be integrated to the system, so that the user can get updates remotely

Water Pump - It receives the voltage from Arduino and turn ON/ OFF the water flow

Automation is a technology through which the appliances can be controlled from a remote location. During the workshop students will design and build an electronic device that can be used to control all the electrical appliances in the home. It can be integrated with a raspberry pi board to make it an IoT device and then can be controlled from a remote location via internet. As it involves Arduino Architecture and Programming, it will be a good choice for the 3rd year students as they will be learning more about the microcontrollers in their curriculum.

During the workshop students will get hands-on experience on the following components,

Arduino Uno - It will act as the brain of the system and processes the data from the sensor

WiFi Module - This will be used to integrate the system onto cloud and send updates to user

Relay Drivers - It will be used to convert the voltage that can be used to operate the electrical appliances

6. IoT Workshop on Home Security Model:

During this IoT workshop students will practically learn to design an electronic device that can be connected to the internet to make it as an IoT device and they can also program it to notify the user whenever a harmful activity happens in the home so it can be used as a security device also. The device can also store the data collected in the cloud and the user can interpret the data. This IoT workshop will be ideal for 4th year students as they will be learning more about wireless communication in their syllabus and can use this project to understand the concepts in a practical manner.

During the workshop students get to work on the following components,

Arduino Uno - It will act as the brain of the system and processes the data from the sensor

WiFi Module - This will be used to integrate the system onto cloud and send updates to user

IR Sensors – It will be used to detect the movement or an unusual activity by detecting the Infra-red rays that will be emitted from them and send data to the microcontroller

7. IoT Based Workshop on Biometrics using Raspberry Pi:

During this IoT workshop students will learn to build an authentication device that can be used for security purpose and can also be used to send the data to the cloud. For authentication purpose students will use Biometric based authentication system and it can be integrated onto the internet by making it as an IoT device. As this project uses Raspberry Pi, students doing their 4th year are recommended to attend this to get experienced in this open source miniature computer.

Students will get hands-on experience on the following components,

Finger Print Scanner - it will be used to scan the finger print and give a digital value for it & send the data to the Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi - It will act as the brain of the system and processes the data from the Finger Print Scanner & facilitates the authentication of the user

8. Workshop on Motion Controlled Servos using IoT:

By attending this IoT workshop students will practically learn to build an electronic device that can stream real time data over the Internet. The system that the student builds will have servo motors and a raspberry pi board. Students will also use a Leap Motion controller for motion tracking and PubNub library for data streaming. They will then work with four servos and two 8×8 RGB LED matrices to detect motion of the hands and program it to display colours according to the spacing between fingers. This workshop will be ideal for 3rd year students as they will learn DSP and Digital Image Processing in their curriculum, so they can use this workshop to apply the concepts learnt practically.

Students will get hands-on experience on the following components,

Raspberry Pi – It will act as the brain of the system and processes the data & facilitates the motion of servos

Servo Motors – It will receive commands from the Raspberry Pi and operates accordingly

Leap Motion Controller – This will be used for the motion tracking

Glove – Pulse sensor will be integrated into this to facilitate the sensing action

Organize a IOT workshop in your college in association with Skyfi Labs

In case you are interested to attend a IoT workshop but not able to find one, you can conduct a IoT workshop in your college itself in association with Skyfi Labs. We at Skyfi Labs have developed some amazing hands-on training programs that helps you to learn and build IoT projects in the most simplest way. Our team will be coming to your college upon inviting along with the kits and necessary material and helps you to build IoT projects practically. The Innovative learning methodology which we follow not only helps you to build projects but ensures you are learning while doing so.In case if you are interested to learn and build the IoT project at your home itself, you can enroll for our online courses and build the IoT project from any part of the Earth.